Macleans.ca: B.C. home connected to Second World war saved from demolition
<!-- April 28, 2006 - 20:35
B.C. home connected to Second World war saved from demolition
VANCOUVER (CP) - Canadian writer Joy Kogawa says she's shocked that her beloved childhood home has been saved from demolition despite such a shortfall in funds raised to restore it.
"I thought miracles happen and dreams come true and that is totally amazing," she said.
The house was featured in Kogawa's acclaimed autobiographical novel Obasan and has been the focus of a national campaign by the Land Conservancy.
Although the group managed to raise only $230,000 so far, it announced Friday that it will go ahead and purchase the house by borrowing money if necessary, said spokesman Bill Turner.
The organization wants the house to remain as a reminder of what Japanese of Canadian heritage endured in the early 1940s, made the announcement Friday.
The conservancy's goal was to raise $1.25 million to buy and restore the house.
Kogawa said she didn't allow herself to get too hopeful during the campaign.
"I thought maybe life has to teach me that there are these disasters in the world. There are so many disasters and this is a minor, minor disaster compared to all of them but it may be something that is necessary for me to go through so be ready."
Kogawa was six in 1942 when she, her older brother Timothy and their parents were forced by the Canadian government to leave the home she remembers so fondly.
It would later be auctioned off without the family's consent but has somehow managed to survive despite changing hands several times.
The current owners wanted to demolish the home so they could build a bigger one on a street now lined with so-called monster houses.
Eventually, the conservancy also wants to turn the house into a writers-in-residence for scribes who suffered human rights abuses in other countries.
Turner said that while he's disappointed more money wasn't raised, the campaign brought people together to talk about an important subject in Canada's history.
He said he's also hoping the federal government will consider the conservancy's appeal for funding.
"They have not said no," said Turner, adding he hopes the Heritage Department will consider the importance of the house to Canada's history, a subject that's missing from many textbooks.
At the height of the Second World War, the government used the War Measures Act to confiscate property and uproot over 21,00 Japanese-Canadians in British Columbia.
They were considered enemies of Canada.
Kogawa and her family were interned in Slocan Valley, in B.C.'s Interior, where she remembers always being cold.
The Kogawas were also forced to work in the sugar beet fields of Coledale, Alta.
<!--new bigbox code end-->